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A look at mass electronic intelligence setup in the US and UK – Economic Times

The recent Union government notification empowering 10 state agencies to “intercept, monitor and decrypt” all information on any computer device has triggered a fresh debate on individual privacy, an issue that has civil rights groups up in arms in the west too. ET looks at mass electronic intelligence-gathering setup in the US and the UK…

SNOWDEN BLEW THE COVER ON GOVTS’ INTEL GATHERING & EXCHANGE…

Edward Snowden, a computer pro who worked for the CIA and NSA, in 2013 released to the press classified documents about illegal mass surveillance by the US and Australian, British and Canadian intelligence files that he had accessed via the exclusive ‘Five Eyes’ network

*Tempora, a British black-ops surveillance program run by the National Security Agency’s (NSA) British partner, GCHQ..

*Boundless Informant: NSA call database tool A secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over to the NSA the phone records of millions of Americans, phone and Internet records of French citizens and some high-profile figures.

*XKeyscore: A tool allowing collection of almost anything done on the internet

Activities in the US

*Post-9/11, the NSA had been collecting Americans’ domestic phone logs in bulk — billions of records per day.

*Intelligence analysts also search for metadata — who contacted whom and when NSA’s warrantless surveillance programme (which originated after 9/11 and has been extended thrice) covers noncitizens abroad whose communications are collected from American companies like Google

534 million

Number of records of phone calls and text messages NSA vacuumed up from American telecommunications providers like AT&T and Verizon in 2017 — more than three times what it collected in the previous year

Activities in the UK

UK’s GCHQ intelligence agency was engaging in ‘population-scale’ interception of communications Operational programmes: Tempora, a bulk data store of all internet traffic; Karma Police, ‘a web browsing profile for every visible user on the internet’; and Black Hole, a database containing more than a trillion events including internet histories, email and instant messenger records, search engine queries and social media activity.

HOW LEGAL IS ALL OF THIS… ANY SAFEGUARDS?

IN THE US

*Changes made by Congress in a 2015 law, the USA Freedom Act, overhauled how the NSA can gain access to domestic telecom data

*Under the new system, bulk records stay with the phone companies but the NSA can get copies of all records of a target and everyone with whom a target has been in contact. But before NSA gets the copies, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has to agree that there is “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that the seed target is linked to terrorism

*NSA’s warrantless surveillance programme is now conducted under a law called Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. It’s controversial because when foreign targets communicate with Americans, the government collects those Americans’ emails and other private messages without a warrant, too. Congress reauthorised that law (up to 2023) without major changes in 2018

IN THE UK

*In September last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled UK’s mass surveillance activities (which were revealed by Snowden) unlawful.

*Mass interception of phone and internet data violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to privacy.

*But bulk interception of communications was not in itself illegal, but that future programs “had to respect criteria set down in its case-law”.

*Sharing information with foreign governments ruled legal.

*Interception of journalistic material violate the right freedom of information.

*A program for obtaining data from communications providers was also found to be “not in accordance with the law”.

CONCLUSIONWhy do govts eavesdrop? Clearly, they have to. To gather intelligence, investigate, prevent crime and protect citizens, but somewhere down the line the privacy of individuals is breached, sometimes more than is needed. That’s where a balance is needed. That’s why citizens protest

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